Ladybug Pre-school: A Unique and Important Center of Learning

The ideal

We must teach our children not only what to see but how to see.

The real

Too often we try to educate by preaching orthodoxies. But orthodox solutions are no longer enough.

Our world is changing faster than ever before while many of our educational premises remain static, mired in the past.

But the past no longer has enough of the answers. In the years ahead, problems will arise for which there are no precedents. To keep the future open we must teach our children not only what to learn but how to learn, how to see, how to analyze.

Only then will they be able to recognize and cope with problems which our generation cannot even foresee.

Atlantic Richfield Company Editor's Note: There is a rewarding measure of quality in much of our corporate institutional advertising. We have been collecting Container Corporation of America's institutionals for almost two decades. Now a series of Atlantic Richfield Company pages from national magazines have become literary collectibles. We have reprinted the words, above, from our Saturday Review of June 24, 1972. Reproductions of original fine art by artists Jasper Johns and Herbert Bayer were used to illustrate the full page institutional message which we feel is an eloquent "word and thought" bridge to the following paragraphs.

We believe that education related to ecology and environment must begin with children. The influence and effects of rocks, rivers, trees, flowers, birds, fresh air and blue skies relates to a greater degree to the child who is receptive and anxious to discover.

We believe that the interests of mankind lie in the interests of children and that the key to humanity is our children's awareness of the ecological and environmental nature of the living planet which gives us life. That is the principle to which the directors of Ladybug Pre-School are dedicated.

Our story of the Ladybug Pre-School evolved from three separate pieces of mail from unrelated sources which, by coincidence, arrived the same day.

First opened was the envelope containing a letter from a Los Angeles subscriber who had read the article about migrating Monarch butterflies in our April, 1973 issue. Accompanying her letter were two pages torn from a nature magazine concerning a remarkable natural phenomenon Coccinellidae commonly known as Ladybugs.

As we read the Ladybug article our glance was distracted by a Ladybug symbol on the face of a second envelope bearing the return address "Ladybug Pre-School, 1030 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Kentfield, California 94904. The enclosed letter signed by Mrs. Margaret Pragoff, co-director, was a request for back issues of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS related to the ecological and environmental aspects of the Valley Of The Sun area, including Phoenix and Scottsdale. The magazines would be turned over to the schools library after the directors

A unique and important center of learning

had studied them carefully in the process of evaluating a suitable site for an Arizona Branch of Ladybug Pre-School.

Envelope number three, from a San Francisco reader, included a newspaper clipping from the Independent Journal, San Rafael, California. "Graduation Stresses An Ecological Theme" headlined a three column report by Joan Lisetor. You'd never guess it the graduation took place at the same Kentfield Ladybug Pre-School.

At any other time the three aforementioned pieces of mail would have been processed, filed and forgotten but we were up to our heads in a special ecology oriented edition so we set coincidence aside for divine guidance and telephoned Mrs. Pragoff. A fifteen minute exchange of questions and answers satisfied our curiousity and we scheduled a week end flight to San Francisco to qualify Ladybug Pre-School.

Kentfield is a beautiful community in attractive, affluent Marin County, across the bay from San Francisco. What an environment for the awareness study and appreciation of the sciences and mysteries of beauty in nature! Gracefully contoured landscapes lay serene under clear blue skies. Beaches, woodland trails, botanical splendor and sunshine are included in the 95,000 acres of undeveloped land. Seven parks, two mountain ranges, five lakes, eleven ecosystems are incorporated in a near perfect source of environmental treasure an ideal setting for what we qualified as a unique and most important center of learning.

Ecology, Environment and Respect are the three key words at Ladybug where directors Barbara delAmo and Peg Pragoff have innovated and developed a unique and unusual curriculum, especially for their four to five year old students, based on their conviction that children and genius have the same master motivational qualities inquisitiveness, imagination and unprejudiced feelings. At Ladybug, adult education is wondrously condensed to be communicated to the child in relation to his capacity for understanding the meaning of ecology, environment and respect. The Ladybug youngster quickly learns that part of ecology concerns biology, the science of living matter in all its forms, and the other half relates to sociology and the human society. The Ladybug child learns that environment is what influences and effects his existence and his development, and that he lives and grows to the measure of respect accorded everything and everyone around him.

San Xavier stated, "Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards." That statement is the cornerstone of our interest and enthusiasm for Ladybug School and its administrators. Ladybug's 180 enrollees range in age from 2½ to 6½ years. Each prospective enrollee is interviewed and screened by the directors. The faculty is composed of fully accredited teachers who are assigned students on an 8 to 1 ratio. Throughout the school year professional tutors, lecturers and instructors are engaged to conduct certain specialized courses and projects.

The 1972-1973 year was a memorable one for Ladybug ecology projects. Marin County's nationally honored naturalist, Mrs. Elizabeth Terwilliger, accepted Ladybug's invitation to conduct field trips for the Pre-School children. Mrs. Terwilliger had just completed her third film on ecology under a special Standard Oil Company grant. No one knows the flora, fauna and nature of the land better than Mrs. Terwilliger who conducted outings to seashore, forest and farms where the children studied tide pools, wildlife and pumpkins from seed to jaco-lanterns.

In November the youngsters visited turkey farms and became so imbued with the spirit of the season that they asked to do a Thanksgiving pageant complete with Pilgrim wear and an actual "first Thanksgiving" dinner.

December was tree-study time combined with nature walks where they enjoyed see, feel, and touch experiences. Wood and leaf specimens were collected and studied. After learning about how acorns were considered as a staff-of-life by the Marin Indians, the youngsters prepared and dined on soup, gruel, and bread made from acorns. During the spring months visits to plant nurseries became part of the program. There the young ecologist learns of shrubs, vines, trees and why earthworms are necessary to the ecosystem. Vegetable and flower gardens are planted and tended on the school grounds. Herbs are grown in the school greenhouse.

The Ladybug Art Room is a veritable gallery of ecology inspired art of flowers, animals and nature, expressed in batik, collage and fabric stitcheries.

Columnist Joan Lisetor's report and the accompanying photographs are testimony that, ecologically speaking, Ladybug children enjoy being children as they look ahead to a better life in their adult world.

Scottsdale, Arizona, will be the setting for the Ladybug Pre-School Ranch Campus. Directors delAmo and Pragoff are former Arizonans and from what we know of their concepts and projected plans, the Valley Of The Sun will be richer by a measure of healthy, happy children.

In the world of great centers of learning represented by Harvard, Cornell or the University of California, our Ladybug Pre-School is a microcosmic quantity. And yet, from Ladybug Pre-School comes the quality which may hold our biological and sociological world together.

The class of '73 was lined up inside ready to present the graduation program, while parents and friends sat in the sunshine waiting.

Years of learning, struggles and hard work were soon to be rewarded. The long-awaited moment was approaching when Steven Fletcher stepped forward to welcome the guests to commencement exercises at the Ladybug Pre-School in Kentfield.

A little shy and difficult to understand with a finger in his mouth, Steven was coached when he forgot his speech by a director of the school, Barbara delAmo. Steven's speedy exit was followed by an ecology program with the graduates in imaginative costumes made by Mrs. delAmo, singing to music composed by the other director of the school, Margaret Pragoff, with choreography by Bonny Lee Degenhardt. In marched the seeds, followed by dancing carrots.

Closely behind were twirling tomatoes, stomping cucumbers, squatting potatoes, bouncing lettuces and tiptoeing soil. Then came the rain two tots in rain slickers squirting water guns. Walking backward Brad D'Ancona tripped over a chair but recovered in time for the grand entrance of the sun, Jennifer Taggart.

The 60 graduates made a smooth exit with the exception of one potato who forgot to bounce and a bag of soil who had to be pushed.

At the close of the ceremony the children presented a vegetable bouquet to Mrs. Degenhardt and roses to Mrs. Pragoff.

Refreshments meant more vegetables vegetable trays and cucumber and watercress sandwiches prepared by the children. There was also punch for graduates and champagne for the moms and dads.